Charlie Maynard
MP for Witney · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for securing this fantastic debate on an important issue, on which she spoke so well.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate and for her excellent speech. Like all of us present, I find the dangerous misuse of e-bikes and e-scooters is being raised with me more and more.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Locally, Thames Valley police officers are finding and seizing bikes that are able to go 120 mph. The problem keeps growing. By some estimates, there are more than 1 million e-scooters in use across the country, with no standards for speed, brakes or batteries.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is happening in Witney and in other areas up and down the country. It is harsh and cruel. The numbers of people losing their jobs every week are not by accident, but by design.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. [ Laughter. ] The latest round of the sustainable farming incentive was a disaster for small farmers, including many in my constituency. They were counting on this money as a lifeline after another impossibly difficult year.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The way to fix that problem is by focusing on two things that the owner values most: stamp price rises and taking cash out of the Royal Mail business. Here are some ideas on how we could achieve that. First, as others have mentioned, there should be no stamp price rises until targets are met. We have to get that link absolutely firm.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
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“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that adopting a policy of managed decline, as the Conservatives did in Oxfordshire in 2014, is a disaster, and is really not the appropriate way to fix the problems we have in front of us?”
House of Commons7 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Extraordinarily, Ofwat, wrote to me in the last month to say that, despite it being publicly stated in the press that Omers, a shareholder in Thames Water, had written its stake down to zero and pulled its board representation off last May, it is still actually controlling the company. Why is this going on? What could be going on here? It smells—”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Bills have gone up by a headline of 31%. Many Witney constituents have written to me with increases of 50% and 70%—in one case, it was even 93%. On top of that, to add insult to injury, Thames Water has an application to the Competition and Markets Authority to increase bills even higher, by 59%. Fourthly, there is the ownership requirement. This one really gets my goat. Thames Water must inform Ofwat of any change to control. Ultimate controllers are defined in Ofwat’s papers as being “in a position to control or in a position to materially influence the company”. Thames Water’s own advisers have publicly stated that the company is de facto controlled by its creditors. Ofwat is ignoring this.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Everybody knows that that is not a sensible way to run a company. By allowing Thames Water to breach that rule, we introduce moral hazard into the water sector and all other regulated sectors. Other water companies take note that there has been no material sanction of Thames Water and realise that they can also likely get away with it. Of the nearly £1.4 billion of funding due to come into the company, £900 million is going straight out in interest expenses, sweet financial goodies for hedge funds, and advisory fees. That is not fair on our bill payers. Customers are being royally stuffed, and Ofwat and the Minister’s DEFRA team are standing by. Thirdly, there is a requirement to demonstrate fairness, transparency and affordability to customers—the fair pricing requirement—and Thames Water is failing at that too.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Professor Peter Hammond, who lives in my constituency, monitored the Stanton Harcourt sewage treatment works in my constituency, and found that there had been 266 illegal spills in just a single sewage treatment works in a four- year period. That is a complete failure of that operating requirement. Secondly, Thames Water is failing the financial viability requirement, under which it is required to have two licences of investment-grade credit ratings. Currently, it has no credit ratings that are investment grade. Standard & Poor’s has the company’s debt 12 notches below investment grade, and Moody’s has it nine notches below. That is as far deep into junk bond territory as one can get. In the last financial year to March 2024, Thames Water had £19 billion of debt but only £1.2 billion of cash in.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is within the Minister’s powers to take action: she is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Water and Flooding at DEFRA, DEFRA oversees Ofwat, and Ofwat issues operating licences to water companies. Here are some of the key requirements that Thames Water needs to comply with, per its Ofwat-issued operating licence. First, there is an operational requirement to comply with environmental and health standards. Thames Water is failing that requirement. As per Environment Agency data, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) said, in 2024 Thames Water discharged nearly 300,000 hours of sewage, which is 50% up on 2023. It is illegal to dump sewage in dry conditions, but it is happening repeatedly.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) for securing this debate on Government support for Thames Water. What does Government support for Thames Water look like? Our current Government support Thames Water by letting it breach the terms of its operating licence, letting Ofwat ignore its own rules, letting consumers take the pain of higher bills for no gain, letting financiers make out like bandits and letting our rivers continue to be filled with sewage. What is shocking about that is that a Labour Government are doing it. This Government are turning out to be every bit as bad as the Conservatives were at protecting our rivers. They are completely ducking their responsibilities.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is easy to lay a lot of the blame at the last Government, but the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 was more window dressing than action. I am new to Parliament, but I was particularly dismayed that not a single word of a single proposed amendment from any party was accepted by the Minister. I wish that in Parliament we all had enough confidence to accept good ideas where we found them—I live in hope.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, it does. I think Ofwat is doing exactly what the company’s creditors want it to do, and I wonder why that is happening, because it should not be. Finally, there is a failure to innovate. There are a host of technologies out there, and far too often we hear the same old lines about Victorian sewers, cameras and how impossible it all is. There is a huge range of leak detection, pipeline monitoring, protective maintenance, trenchless pipe repair and pressure management technologies. I hear from Oxfordshire firms that it is easier to sell sewer technology solutions into the US and Europe than into the UK, so something is going seriously wrong. We could start by looking at whether the incentives are effectively aligned; I do not believe they are. What are the consequences of this failure to act?”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As per page 92 of the independent expert report from Thames Water’s adviser, Teneo, the net cost to the Treasury of taking the company into special administration, even in the worst-case scenario, is zero—please look it up. Instead, we now have this bizarre situation whereby a Labour Government are cheerleading the American hedge funds and private equity funds taking over our largest water company and making a massive profit out of its customers. What goes for Thames Water will very likely go for the rest of the sector, so the signal that you and your Government are sending the sector—”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We should set pollution baselines and pollution reduction targets and get serious about putting transparency targets and technology to work to clean up our rivers. Special administration is clearly the most logical option at the moment, but I believe that the Government are shying away from it because of threats of legal action against them, phantasmagorical scenarios of financial Armageddon, or both. Please do not let Thames Water’s lobbyists, including Ruth Kelly, the ex-Labour Minister who is now chair of Water UK, to scaremonger you out of taking the action that 16 million consumers—your electorate—need. Those scenarios are patently not true, and it is best to ask Thames Water about that.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government’s support for Thames Water essentially amounts to unconditional support for the company’s creditors, at a direct and massive cost to its customers. What do we need to do instead? First, we need to put the company out of its financial misery and put it into special administration. We should allow its debt to be massively written down to something like three times the cash flow or thereabouts. If the debt is reduced, the company will have a sufficiently strong balance sheet to allow it to invest in the infrastructure we desperately need and to spend our bill payments on fixing treatment works and pipe networks, rather than paying interest. We should allow water companies coming out of special administration to be mutually owned by their customers and professionally managed.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“None of the 60 amendments in the Commons, or however many there were, was accepted. The rejected proposals included putting flow meters on the outflows of sewage treatment works, which is sort of logical; establishing targets to reduce pollution over time, using existing benchmarks of hours of spilled sewage; making sewage treatment works’ calculations more transparent; and bringing environmental experts and consumer representatives on to water boards. The Labour Government are now allowing a public utility company to line the pockets of bankers and hedge funds at the expense of bill payers. As someone said in the Financial Times this week, “with water, it’s a total monopoly and a total shambles. A shambopoly if you will”.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many apologies to you, Ms Lewell, and to the Minister. The signal that the Minister and the Government are sending to this and other regulated sectors is simply terrible. All that customers in my Witney constituency and across the whole catchment really want at this point is reliable, affordable, clean water to our homes. We want local rivers and lakes not to have sewage poured into them on a near-daily basis. We want a Government who are serious about putting the interests of customers and our rivers before the interests of hedge funds and private equity funds. Please stop letting us down.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to play back what the Minster just said. It is up to either Ofwat or the Secretary of State to apply to the court to put the company into special administration. As the Minister wrote to me last July or September, one of those conditions is whether the company is unable, or likely to be unable, to pay its debts. Given that the company has come out and said that it has only £39 million, with £19.5 billion of debt, and it is going to run out of money by 24 March, I think that we have passed that benchmark pretty clearly. The idea that we have not is simply not true. It is therefore up to Ofwat or the Secretary of State, who continues to decline—maybe that is a better word than resist—to ask the court to consider.”
House of Commons3 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the Secretary of State will know, in 2018, this House allocated £40 million of funding in memory of Dame Tessa Jowell, who was killed by a brain tumour. Seven years on, less than half of that money has been spent. The money is doing no good sitting in a bank, so will the Secretary of State please commit to spending that money within a decade of Dame Tessa’s death?”
House of Commons25 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Member agree that if we were to rejoin a single market in electricity, we would lower our electricity bills by joining the single day-ahead coupling system with Europe?”
House of Commons19 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We could pull research into the UK by giving patents for a few extra years, which would encourage people to dig into the research in these critical areas. I live in hope of that one potential gain. Even if products are obtained, reimbursement has to be accessible on the NHS, which is far from certain. Ensuring that there is a robust, timely and accessible route to making these drugs available on the NHS for patients really counts. It is critical that that does not fall off the radar. Also, we are really falling behind in the number of clinical researchers active in the UK today. If we want to get this research moving, we must think about what we are doing to get clinical researchers working hard in this space and in others, because we are not doing a good enough job on that. That is all I will say.”
House of Commons14 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would also encourage the Government, rather than just starting from scratch and taking months to reinvent the wheel, to find out what is going on in the private sector and what trials and registers of people seeking trials are already out there, and to build on that. If there is a partnership with some company, that is fine, but let us move quickly, because speed really counts. The second point is about orphan drug regulations. A key trigger for me getting into politics was Brexit. I thought it was a disastrous idea, and I still do. I struggle to find any possible gains from Brexit, but there is one thing that we could do. The EU has regulations on orphan drugs; ours could be more generous.”
House of Commons14 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our actions, and what we do as a team, are what we will be judged on. I am going to throw it over to the Labour side a little, because they are in government now and they have more power than we do in opposition. When we leave the Chamber today, I ask each Government MP to ask, “Okay, what are we actually going to do?” The talk in this Chamber is nice, but it is the actions that count. I will pick up on two points. The first is the trial register. We have first-hand experience with Georgie of trying to find what trials are out there. Obviously, there are not enough trials; we know that, and that is something we need to fix. Also, matching patients with trials is not rocket science—that is a basic thing.”
House of Commons14 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Members for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh) and for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton), because I have enjoyed working with them on the Bill. We all have our own stories. I should state my personal interest. My sister Georgie is sitting in the Gallery. She was diagnosed with a GBM—glioblastoma multiforme—nearly two years ago. I would like to say that she is alive and well, but let me just say that she is alive and she is doing well. She has been brave, determined and an inspiration to us all. It is particularly painful as she is a mother of three, a wife, a daughter and a sister. We have a lot to focus on, and it is on us collectively. I will not rehash too much, and I will try to resist having a cry-fest, but it might be difficult.”
House of Commons14 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our country’s very high electricity costs are another huge problem facing businesses in my constituency and nationally. Reintegrating our power markets with Europe’s through the single-day ahead coupling system would cost our country nothing, save costs for businesses, reduce carbon dioxide and make our power markets more efficient. Will the Minister take fast steps to reintegrate our electricity markets with those of our European neighbours?”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I think the hon. Member will agree that the shutting down of the SFI with no notice on Tuesday night is an awful situation. DEFRA has been either disorganised or sneaky, but either way it diminishes the trust of our farming communities in the Government.”
House of Commons13 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Constituents in Witney were extremely distressed to receive letters this week from Thames Water saying that their bills are going up by £19 a month from April, putting more pressure on household bills. Does the Minister think that is acceptable, given that the restructuring plan in the High Court is putting £800 million to £900 million of interest expenses on to this company—”
House of Commons6 February 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), has written about the benefits of the mutual ownership model, which he states forces water companies “to operate in the interests of consumers; where environmental considerations such as disposal of sewage would take precedence over profit.” That is our request. I rest my case.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If they have failed in the task, and if we do not have absolute confidence in the regulators—I do not think that anybody who will be voting today does—we must not give water back to the private sector. Globally, this is standard. It is what the rest of the world does with its water sector. Even in the US, the vast majority of the water sector is mutually or municipally held. Chile may be the one shining example of private capitalism that we can point to in this regard, but there are almost no other countries in the world that do as we do. We are asking the Committee to do what is standard, rather than what is unusual. The Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Private companies have made an absolute mess of our water sector, have added no value over the past 36 years and have ramped up nearly £70 billion of debt. When the companies come out of special administration, we have an opportunity to do something different and not to repeat the mistakes of the past. I want the Committee to take that on board. We are not asking for a commitment; we are just asking for consideration. Hon. Members all know how badly the private companies have treated us, our rivers and our communities. These companies are monopolies, so they have absolute power. Unfortunately, our regulators have completely failed in their task.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. Good morning, everyone. I will highlight two key points about new clause 28, which concerns what happens when companies that have gone into special administration come out of it. Subsection (1) refers to considering “the merits of changing the law to provide that a water company exiting a special administration regime becomes a company mutually owned by its customers.” Subsection (2) states that that would involving considering “the general merits of mutual ownership of water companies in such circumstances, and…what model of mutual ownership would be most suitable.” We are not saying that companies have to be this or that; we are just advocating considering this possibility.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What I really like about our proposal is that the companies are coming out of special administration, so it does not cost anybody anything: the equity of the shareholders has been written off. We often hear that it would not be a good idea, because it would cost too much to buy the companies out. Under our proposal, we would not need to buy them out, because we are advocating this only where companies are going into special administration. We are advocating a mutual model and—I say respectfully to the hon. Member—only that. That is what is on the table today, and that is what we are after.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That may be a chink of light, because all I have heard from the Government so far is “Only private companies welcome here.” My understanding is that the Cunliffe review’s remit purposely excludes ownership. If that is now on the table, it is great news, because it is one of the fundamental problems in the water sector. If the commission’s remit now includes ownership structures, I am delighted. I would love the Minister to clarify the point.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It will also ensure that the shortfall recovery mechanism is implemented in a way that means costs are recovered fairly.” To me, that completely confirms paragraph 69 of the explanatory notes published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which says that the Government will make the bill payers, as opposed to the creditors, pay for the costs. Please confirm, if you could.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all welcome one another, but I meant the fact sheet. I really appreciate your going to the trouble of putting it together; I thank your team as well. I have read it diligently and done my best, but I have a quiz question for you. The first bullet point refers to giving “the power to recover HMG funding should there not be sufficient funds to pay HMG back at the end of a SAR.” Then, under the heading “Context”, the penultimate bullet point states: “If this shortfall occurred, and Ministers decided to use this new power, the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers must launch a consultation prior to this power being used. This will ensure that those affected (e.g. water billpayers) are able to provide their views.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Rather than the money being taken from the customers, which is exactly what the bullet point that I read out three minutes ago states, we believe that it should be taken from the creditors. It is not about compensation. I am surprised that there is confusion on the point, because that is not where I am coming from. It is about the shortfall and who pays for it. It is clearly stated twice—both in DEFRA’s explanatory notes and in the bullet point, which I can read out again as desired—that the bill payers will pay for it. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am happy to hear that mutual ownership is being considered. I am very grateful for that. I will take my chances and try to clear up one point. I completely agree with what the Minister read out from the last page of the fact sheet: “Would the shortfall recovery mechanism be used to compensate financial creditors or shareholders following a SAR? No.” Absolutely, but my point is not remotely about that. I am not asking about compensating creditors. Let me take the Committee back to the first paragraph on page 1. Where there is a recovery to be made, who pays for it? We are not talking about compensating creditors; we are talking about taking money off them.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Regulatory capital value encourages as big an asset base as possible, which gives water companies an incentive to source product as expensively as possible—to pour really expensive concrete. It has been going on over the last few decades, so I am not pinning the blame on this Government, but I am asking for their help to stop it. It is not in the customers’ interests for us to continue to have faulty procurement processes that encourage water companies to buy things expensively. With new clause 32 the Liberal Democrats are trying to highlight that problem and address it. I suspect that the provision will not be passed, but I am going to be talking about it. RCV is the issue, and I am interested to see if the Government will recognise it as such and look to address it.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. New clause 32 is about procurement. I will read out the key point: “The Authority must issue rules requiring relevant undertakers to use competitive procurement processes in respect of procurement relating to water infrastructure.” What are we getting at here? There is an unholy trinity that is causing trouble inside our water sector: too much debt, regulatory capital value—a concept that is misfiring big time—and the ownership model. I hope that the Government will take on that unholy trinity and find a stake. The new clause addresses RCV, because it is not working in the water sector. I touched on that in our last sittings, so I will not drag the Committee through it again.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Two-hundred million is a really big number. In my patch in Witney, we have sewage treatment works as far as the eye can see that are undercapacity and are leaking sewage all over the place—at Bampton, Cassington, Carterton, Witney, Milton; you name it. It is awful, and I am sure that is the case in other constituencies, too. Two-hundred million pounds is miles higher than any of their spend, so—correct me if I am wrong—all those sewage treatment works are going to carry on without the new procurement processes because they are below the £200 million threshold.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(2B) An undertaker which fails to provide information required under subsection (2A) will be subject to such penalties as the Authority may impose. (2C) Where, in providing information required under subsection (2A), an undertaker expects not to be able to fulfil its duties under subsections (1) and (2), the undertaker must establish a plan to meet its requirements by a relevant time. (2D) An undertaker which fails to carry out a plan established under subsection (2A) will be subject to such penalties as the Authority may impose.””— (Charlie Maynard.) Brought up, and read the First time .”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(1B) An undertaker which fails to provide information required under subsection (1A) will be subject to such penalties as the Authority may impose. (1C) Where, in providing information required under subsection (1A), an undertaker expects not to be able to fulfil its duties under subsection (1), the undertaker must establish a plan to meet its requirements by a relevant time. (3) In section 94, after subsection (2) insert— “(2A) When participating in a planning consultation, or when otherwise providing advice in relation to a planning matter, a water undertaker must provide— (a) full and accurate information, and (b) an honest assessment, in relation to its current and future ability to fulfil its duties under subsections (1) and (2).”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We will not put this to a vote, but I will continue to highlight the point that £200 million is too high a benchmark and we should drop it, because that would serve us all, and our customers, better. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 33 Responsibility in relation to planning issues “(1) The Water Industry Act 1991 is amended as follows. (2) In section 37 (General duty to maintain water supply system etc), after subsection (1) insert— “(1A) When participating in a planning consultation, or when otherwise providing advice in relation to a planning matter, a water undertaker must provide— (a) full and accurate information, and (b) an honest assessment, in relation to its current and future ability to fulfil its duties under subsection (1).”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It means that if an undertaker does not have sewage treatment work capacity, they must commit to draw up a plan to install it by a relevant time. The “relevant time” means that if 200 or 2,000 houses are being added and the sewage treatment works do not have sufficient capacity, then the undertaker will be saying, “By the time those houses are occupied, we will have increased capacity by the amount required.” This is all very common-sense, but many hon. Members will have been district councillors in their time—I currently am one—and I am sure they will have seen it happen time and time again in planning committees where, guess what, the response from the water utility is: “Fine, no problem. Hook ’em up.””
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. There are only three new clauses to go; I will highlight the key parts of new clause 33. Subsection (2)(1A) states: “When participating in a planning consultation, or when otherwise providing advice in relation to a planning matter, a water undertaker must provide full and accurate information, and an honest assessment, in relation to its current and future ability to fulfil its duties under subsection (1)” Subsection (3)(2C) states: “Where, in providing information required under subsection (2A), an undertaker expects not to be able to fulfil its duties under subsections (1) and (2), the undertaker must establish a plan to meet its requirements by a relevant time.” What does that mean?”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I do not know when that changed. [Interruption] In 2015, was it? There we are: maybe it was changed in 2015. Perhaps all of us, or most of us, recognise that is not a good situation. Time and again—I have seen this in Witney, Ducklington, Bampton, Aston and Carterton—this is just waved through. When I quiz people from Thames Water about why they have waved it through, they say, “We have a duty to connect.” They do have a legal duty to connect, which they take seriously, but they take their duty to add capacity to match that increase much less seriously.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is a real problem, and it is being done repeatedly on sewage treatment works that have dumped sewage left, right and centre for years. The fourth criterion is infiltration. Some 47% of the capacity of west Oxfordshire’s big nine sewage treatment works comes from infiltration. That means that our pipes are leaking. There is not enough science on this matter. If we were to put in flow meters, we would have the information, but it seems that we Lib Dems are the only team in the room, alongside the hon. Member for Waveney Valley, that advocates flow meters. If we want to solve these problems, we have to get serious about the information.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When sewage treatment works’ capacity is calculated—they are very much under-capacity in my patch and, I am sure, in those of other hon. Members—there are four criteria. The first is the population or population equivalent, which is normally optimistically understated. The second is per capita consumption. Thames Water has a high per capita consumption when it suits the company and a low per capita consumption when it suits the company, so again that is understated. The third is the Environment Agency multiplier, which is typically 3.0, and is discounted far too often. When there is a known record of spills, Thames Water is still allowed to discount the EA multiplier, often from 3.0 down to 2.4; that is a 20% cut, which means that the capacity can be 20% less.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The point about “relevant time” is fair and deserves to be clarified. I completely agree on the issue of statutory consultees and have no issue with that either—that would make much more sense, because there is a real failure in that regard. I will go a step further—I have lived experience in this regard—and give a special shout-out to Thames Water employee Richard Aylard, who for two years dutifully showed up every six weeks with West Oxfordshire district council to hash through these issues. I learned a lot from him and am grateful to him, as well as to Jake Morley, Lidia Arciszewska, Phil Martin, Laurence King, Alaric Smith and Alistair Wray. They sat through all that, and we all learned together. It is important that everybody knows what came out of those meetings.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have vast amounts of housing that will be built, and under the current law, they will be steamrolled through and the capacities will not keep up. That is a real problem for everybody, and it puts more pressure on our rivers.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I completely agree with the hon. Member. Using West Oxfordshire as an example again, we have installed Grampian conditions, which I encourage other Members to look into, where we have said, “You may not occupy this house.” We could not stop the houses being built by arguing that there was insufficient capacity, but we could put a Grampian condition in force that says, “Those houses may not be occupied. Any buyer knows this, so they will not buy them.” It is flagged to any buyer so that they do not buy a house they cannot occupy, which will continue until the capacity has been added. That puts some heat underneath the water companies to get on and increase their sewage treatment works capacity. I really encourage the Government to look into those.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for his kind words, and I look forward to his support in some of the votes at some point. In the meantime, if he has recommendations on the wording that he would like to put forward, I ask that he please do so. These new clauses are already in place, so maybe that is impossible, but let us by all means try to improve them.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for Monmouthshire for her excellent point. It is very interesting that a mutually owned water company is taking that very sensible decision and approach. It highlights that that is a benefit. They are not trying to make money hand over fist. They are trying to do the right thing.”
House of Commons16 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗